Nature.

NATURE .

BY H . W . LONGFELLOW . AS a fond mother , when the day is o ' er , Leads by the hand her little child to bed , Half willing , half reluctant to be led And leave his broken playthings on the floor ;

Still gazing at them through the open door , Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead , Which , though more splendid , may not please him more : So Nature deals with us , and takes away Our playthings one by oneand by the hand

, Leads us to rest so gently that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay , Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know .

Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

NOTES ON LITERATURE , SCIENCE , AND ART .

BY BRO . GEORGE MARKHAM TWEDDELL , Author of " Shakspere , his Times and Contemporaries , " " The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham , " " The People ' s History of Cleveland and its Vicinage , " " The Visitor ' s Handbook to Redcar , Goatham , and Saltbitrn-by-the-Sen , " " The History of the Stockton and Darlington Railway , " Sfc , fyc . THE newspapers inform us that there are 197 , 617 miles of railway in the worldof which 81841 in the United States

, , are . Under the somewhat humorous title of " An Hour with a Sewer Rat , or a few Plain Hints on House Drainage and Sewer Gas , " Bro . Bailey , of Darlington , has just published an interesting little volume from the pen of Bro . George Gordon Hoskins , F . R . I . B . A ., who , I observe , is also the author of a book called " The Clerk of the Works , " which I have not seen . I always feel glad to hear of men who really know something about bringing rude matter into due form belonging to our once operative Craft ; and though 1 never had the least wish to make it once more a trade guild , or even an architectural and

antiquarian society , I had much rather that it became either than a mere freeand-easy , however select and respectable , and I know scores of brother Masons of a sort , who , notwithstanding the fine moral teaching which they cannot fail to hear whenever they attend a lodge , would fain make it into something like the defunct Order of Ancient Bucks . I have known an otherwise worthy brother appointed Grand Superintendent of Works for one of our most important Provinceswho did not know even the names of the different orders

, of architecture , and could not tell an Ionic column from one of the Corinthian . Such appointments deservedly bring our dear Craft into disrepute ; and with so many good architects enlisted under our banners , ought for henceforth and for ever to be avoided . Frank Bucklaud says— " I have such an opinion of the rat ' s cleverness , that I almost believe he takes in our weekly newspapers and periodicals ; " and Bro . Hoskins has made this paragraph his motto ,